Stowed fiber is traditionally stowed in loops. In military applications, weapons related optical and electro-optical devices pigtailed with optical fiber are spliced together and there is excess fiber that is not stowed due to the working length requirement of certain splicing operations. To then stow this excess fiber without twisting it, one device is mounted while the other device together with its stowed fiber must be physically rotated in a spiral fashion to coil up the fiber at the splice. This is exactly backwards from what would be mechanically advantageous namely, fixing both devices and working with just the fiber.
Paying out fiber passively (unmotorized) has traditionally been accomplished by spooling the fiber on a cylindrical form. Then when needed, the fiber is pulled axially off the form. This produces a spiral of fiber as it is pulled off. As the fiber is pulled more and more taught, this induces regions of high stress, kinks in other words. These kinks are all potential fracture sites.
There exists a need in the art for an apparatus and method of stowage for flexible linear objects including optical fiber which reduces regions of high stress and provides a substantially kink free environment when paying out fiber passively. An ideal apparatus and method of optical fiber stowage would not induce 360° twists in the fiber and allow both ends of the fiber to be fixed.
It is to be understood that the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not to be viewed as being restrictive of the present invention, as claimed. Further advantages of this invention will be apparent after a review of the following detailed description of the disclosed embodiments, which are illustrated schematically in the accompanying drawings and in the appended claims.